{"id":28578,"date":"2022-04-15T09:52:58","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T13:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=28578"},"modified":"2022-04-15T09:52:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T13:52:58","slug":"paul-kupperberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2022\/04\/15\/paul-kupperberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Chow down on butter chicken with Paul Kupperberg in Episode 169 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time once again to step into the time machine, as this episode’s guest, Paul Kupperberg<\/a>, is one of the two people in comics I\u2019ve known the longest. He, along with former guest of the podcast Paul Levitz<\/a>, ran fanzine sales at Phil Seuling\u2019s 1971 4th of July weekend Comic Art Convention. We were both 16 then.<\/p>\n

Paul’s another one of those guests I\u2019d planned to sit across the table from during a day trip north sometime during the past two years, but that couldn’t happen, so to prevent the state of the world from stealing from us the conversation we would have had in better times, this became another one of the remote episodes I started doing once our world narrowed in early 2020, urged on by my Patreon supporters<\/a>, who felt as much of a need for community during this difficult period as I did. <\/p>\n

A lot has changed over the past half century since Paul and I met, as he\u2019s written more than 1,000 short stories and comic book stories during those years. Among the characters whose adventures he\u2019s scripted are Superman, Supergirl, Superboy, the new Doom Patrol, Green Lantern, the Justice League of America, Aquaman, Conan, and many others. He also scripted something near and dear to my heart — the first appearance of Keith Giffen’s Ambush Bug character in DC Comics Presents<\/em> #52 (Dec. 1982). He wrote the syndicated The World’s Greatest Superheroes <\/em>newspaper comic strip with Jos\u00e9 Delbo from 1981\u20131985. He’s the author of more than three dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Same Old Story<\/em>, JSA: Ragnarok<\/em>, Direct Comments: Comics Creators in Their Own Words<\/em>, and Paul Kupperberg\u2019s Illustrated Guide to Writing Comics<\/em>. He’s been an editor at DC Comics, WWE Kids\u2019 Magazine<\/em>, and the Weekly World News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Paul ordered in Butter Chicken from Curry & Hurry<\/a> in Riverside Connecticut, I ran over to Spice Connexion<\/a> in Martinsburg, West Virginia for take-out Lamb Rogan Josh, and I hope you grab some Indian food so you can better pretend to be part of the gabfest.<\/p>\n

We discussed which superhero starred in his first favorite comic book, the reasons we’re in agreement when it comes to the Stan vs. Jack debate, why his introduction to Superman had nothing to do with comics, what we each felt was lacking in our own early comic book writing, the surprising identity of the DC editor whose books sold the best, what caused legendary artist Don Heck to curse him out, the special challenges of writing comic strips, how he needed to get ready (or not) before writing all those legacy characters, what it was like rebooting Doom Patrol, which Archie character’s death upset him so much he had to step away from the keyboard, and much more.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how you can join us — <\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 168 previous episodes.<\/p>\n

2) Use the RSS feed of http:\/\/eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com\/rss<\/a> on the device of your choice.<\/p>\n

3) Or simply listen via the embed below.<\/p>\n